


I Don't Feel So Well

by Kira_Dattei



Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [22]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Immortal Found Family, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Pre-Canon, Temporary Character Death, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27643561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Dattei/pseuds/Kira_Dattei
Summary: Joe doesn’t handle the cold very well. And that’s even without getting thrown into a frozen lake.Prompt: Hypothermia
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994617
Comments: 14
Kudos: 126





	I Don't Feel So Well

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a whump writer so I can't promise a huge amount of whump in all of these. I just picked the prompt from each day that actually sparked an idea and ran with it.  
> I'm mostly using these as a way to get a feel for the characters and I simply love the relationships given in canon and wanted to explore them.  
> Joe is the lucky whumpee for most of these because I just love him.
> 
> These are all going to be one-shots and they are as connected as you want them to be so you’re good to just read one and not worry about missing anything.

Out of the four of them, Booker handled the cold the best. He could be in near freezing temperatures with just a light jacket on and be comfortable enough. He still complained but that was because he was Booker and he was much more cynical than all of them and that was quite the accomplishment.

Andy seemed to just decide not to care, having been everywhere in the world in every season at some point so she just deigned to ignore it. Though when she did have a choice in the matter, she did gravitate toward warmer, humid climes.

Nicky truly didn’t care one way or another. He needed more layers in the cold than Booker but he didn’t bear any contention towards that weather.

Joe hated the cold. Over nine hundred years old and he still held onto the claim that he was of the desert and therefore not suited to freezing temperatures. Andy, and Quynh when she had been with them, had both said that it was while in the cold that Yusuf Al-Kaysani was at his most intolerable. And he would even push Nicky to his limit sometimes, it not being a coincidence that almost all of the properties they had collected ownership of were in warmer countries.

But sometimes their work took them where they didn’t like to go and this time it was to Montreal in the middle of January, so in the middle of a Canadian winter.

I.e. it was fucking cold and Joe hadn’t been shy to say so daily. And it didn’t help that most days they were dressed for a fight and that didn’t allow for him to wear heavier clothes. He needed to be mobile and jackets were too cumbersome and easy for others to get a hold of.

But they should be finished up today and then Joe could convince them to leave tonight and they probably wouldn’t even put up much of a fight just to shut him up. And he’d take that being the reason in a second as long as it meant they left sooner.

He and Nicky were searching a property their target owned on the lake while Andy and Booker were searching his office building a few miles away, both of them looking for where he was hiding the people he’d had kidnapped and were set to be sold off in the next few days.

Joe hated assholes like this who handled people like they were objects. And his anger made for an acceptable distraction from the cold.

He and Nicky had started at the bottom and were working their way up the three story, ridiculously large and luxurious house, though they were both expecting the kidnapped people to be at the office. He just spent more time there and the whole selling people wasn’t something many people who did that sort of thing brought home.

“Think he’d even notice if we picked one of these rooms and just stuck around?” Joe asked absently. The heating in the house was much better than the place they were staying at and he was actually feeling close to comfortable for the first time in about a week.

“I’m sure something would tip him off,” Nicky replied easily enough in the manner that meant he was just amusing Joe. Which was fine since the past day, his responses to Joe had been getting short.

“It wouldn’t be me. I’d actually be able to sleep in here. Not even you at my side has been enough to warm me to sleep, _hayati_.”

“I’m aware. Only a few rooms left. We need to hurry. He’s due back within the hour.”

“You could’ve stayed outside and kept watch.”

“Not you?” Joe heard the smile in Nicky’s voice in that one.

“You’re not funny.”

Joe checked the door that he was pretty sure led up to an attic and found it locked. Huh, maybe the people were here after all. He gave a soft whistle and Nicky came up to stand beside him and watch the hall as he pulled his lockpick kit out of its pocket and he went to work.

The lock released after about a minute and Joe stood and readied his shotgun, opening the door as he stepped to the side so Nicky could enter first. He followed immediately behind, falling into familiar step behind Nicky as they ascended the stairs to another door. Nicky checked the door, finding it was also locked and so Joe kneeled down beside him and worked on that lock as well.

When he succeeded, Nicky leaned down and whispered to him in Genovese, “I hear movement inside. We stay low.”

Joe nodded and he slid back, quickly switching out his shotgun for the gun holstered at his thigh. He needed a bit more precision going into this unknown. Nicky turned the knob carefully, trying to keep it as quiet as possible. He pulled the door open gradually, just in case it didn’t make any sort of creak. Joe leaned over once he had enough clearance to see inside and he then nodded to Nicky, who opened the door the rest of the way and then again led the way.

They only made it a few steps when Nicky stopped moving forward and Joe stopped at once, so completely aware of Nicky’s movements as he was. He looked past Nicky to try and see what had stopped him but Nicky tipped his head up and Joe followed the instruction and saw the camera looking down at them.

“Haven’t seen any other cameras,” Joe noted in Arabic just in case they had audio. It could be hard to tell with the advancements in the simplest of security cameras.

“No, neither have I. We should hurry in case the monitors for them are on the property.”

They didn’t need to go far. The hall continued for only a few meters before it split off and there were two doors in either direction, all evenly spaced.

“Here’s hoping they aren’t in all four. That’ll take some time,” Joe muttered. “I’ll take the left. Let me know if you hear anything from the right that says I should work my way over there.”

Nicky nodded and they split. It wasn’t far but Joe immediately felt his focus shift to cover the gap left by Nicky’s absence.

He moved to the door at the end of the hall and pressed his ear against it. He heard the telltale sound of muffled cries, the sound tired like the person had been crying for a long time. He looked over to Nicky where he was standing at the first door to the right and nodded. Instead of starting with the lock, he checked the other door and didn’t hear any crying but did hear muffled shuffling around, indicating there were people in there as well. He noted that Nicky was walking toward him again and so he pulled his lockpick back out and started working on this door.

When Nicky reached him, he leaned in to whisper, still in Genovese, “I only hear people in the second room.”

“Both over here. I’ll get this unlocked and you get them ready to go. We’ll lead them all out at the same time.”

“If anyone comes, I’ll take them. Stay on the doors.”

“But of course,” Joe gave his love a quick grin before focusing all his attention on the door.

He’d barely gotten the first door unlocked when he heard the thumping of footsteps and he knew they were officially out of leisure time. Nicky moved back over to where the hall split and settled down on his side with his rifle pointed down the hall, making himself a small target.

Joe moved on to the next door without opening the one he’d unlocked, hoping no one inside would try and open the door and then make a run for it right into whoever was coming.

Then Nicky started firing and he figured no one would try and move toward gunfire. Joe split his attention only enough to keep track of how many rounds Nicky fired, counting out to when he would reload so he would know when Nicky wouldn’t be covering him with the rifle.

The second door was unlocked and Joe moved down the hall, stepping up so that his legs straddled Nicky’s waist so he could look around the corner and hug the wall. He saw the movement of people hovering just enough steps down that they weren’t visible.

“Four are down, at least half a dozen more. They haven’t taken any real risks yet,” Nicky reported.

“So they’re either afraid of hurting anyone in the room or they’re buying time,” Joe determined.

“Yes, I would say so. You’re ready to work on the last door?”

“Yeah. You know we could dig in here, give Andy a call and she could take care of the work for us.”

Nicky let go of the rifle with his left hand, the weapon not even shifting its aim with the change in grip, and Nicky swatted at Joe’s leg. “Don’t insult us like that.”

“Not so much insulting us as the easy way is sometimes preferred. We get to experience it so rarely.”

“Yusuf, go get the other door unlocked so we can get these people out of here,” Nicky said, sounding exasperated in a show that he was still already at his limit of dealing with Joe’s mood going all over the place as it was.

Joe stepped back and dropped to a crouch before springing into a low forward roll to cross the gap of the wall. Gunfire sounded behind him as he eased to his feet, both from Nicky and from down the hall, bits of the wall flying past Joe’s head before he walked to the far room and started working on that last lock.

This time when he got the door, he pushed the door open and was surprised by someone grabbing onto his vest and yanking him forward, tossing him to the floor.

Well, he hadn’t expected there to be any guards inside the rooms. That wasn’t so common.

He caught a small group of five or six people crowded against the far wall, watching with terrified eyes as the guard pointed his gun at Joe.

He was still too close though and Joe swung his leg in a horizontal arc to sweep the man’s leg out from under him. He followed the momentum to his knees and reached for the gun. The guy was obviously a bit more trained than the standard low-paid guard and he managed to pull the gun away from Joe’s reach.

Joe didn’t falter, though. He simply reached to the gun at his thigh, drew it, and fired a single shot into the man’s head.

He couldn’t stop there as he immediately realized that if there had been a guard in this room, there was likely ones in the others, which meant Nicky would be flanked and he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference quickly enough with how the walls were muffling the gunshots.

He’d barely turned toward the door when someone appeared in the doorway and Joe lifted the gun to fire, hitting the guard right in the chest, which was only mildly helpful as he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

And then another followed right away and rapid-fired into the room. Joe heard the screams of the people behind him and he dove to his right, hoping he was focused on as the target and that they would follow him and not put the innocent people in more danger. It worked but that meant that he was shot…six times, though none of the shots were life-threatening. The shooter was no marksman and most of the bullets hit Joe’s arm with one hitting his shoulder while the last one grazed off his cheek. But then someone else fired and hit him painfully in the knee, making his leg fold under his weight. He hit the floor and hands were grabbing at him and he prepared himself to be shot point blank but instead he was dragged to the side of the room and then he was hurled away from the men dragging him.

Instead of hitting the floor or the wall, he felt himself impact against a window, the glass cracking behind him. He was just pulling himself upright when he then heard more gunfire and felt a few more bullets hit him in the stomach. He curled into the pain before he was again shoved into the window, this time the glass breaking completely and he fell out.

He recalled that this side of the house was over the water just before he hit the ice, breaking through into the freezing water. The fall surprisingly didn’t kill him, because while it was only three floors up, that was still a rough landing. And he was sure he broke something on impact but he was too distracted by falling into freezing water in the middle of winter, gasping at the shock which only made him breathe in the water.

He began to panic, flailing to find the surface so he didn’t drown. He hadn’t drowned since their years looking for Quynh and he could already feel that familiar desperation racing through him.

He didn’t have much time at all and he risked opening his eyes in the very slight chance that he could see anything that might tell him which way he needed to swim toward. It didn’t help, the freezing water making him squeeze his eyes shut before they even got more than a crack open. But he managed to get lucky enough as he felt his back bump against something firm and he flipped his body around to feel the layer of ice covering the lake. He felt along the ice, looking for the hole that he’d made falling in, pushing himself along until he felt his foot hook the hole and he rushed to push his head into the air, taking in a gasping breath before he started coughing, working out the water that he’d swallowed down initially. He did his best to hook his arms over the break in the ice, trying to pull enough of his body out that he didn’t go back under in the very possible likelihood that he froze to death.

He couldn’t do that to Andy, make her look for someone else under the water. And while this lake was nowhere near the practically hopeless search through oceans, it was still one of them being trapped drowning over and over again and Andy wouldn’t handle it well. He had to look out for what they had left of her, take care of the pieces still remaining.

His hands were slipping along the ice, it made slick from the water spilling over top of it and he couldn’t get a grip. His strength was fading fast, his body shutting down from the cold. His body wouldn’t heal from this, would only heal the damage and the subsequent death. He had to get warm on his own. And he had to consider that Nicky wasn’t going to come flying out the window to help pull him out, not when there were still guards inside that he had to finish off. And they hadn’t contacted Andy and Booker so they wouldn’t be on the way. It was on him to get himself out.

He was so used to being able to rely on at least one of his family that it struck him deeply to have the thought that he was alone in this. He hated that feeling.

Pulling himself together, he tried moving around the rim of the hole to see if there was something he could use to get enough leverage to work himself out.

He found it on the opposite side of the hole from where he came up where the ice was weaker, dipping under the weight of his arms resting on it. But that was enough that he could maybe get enough of himself on top of it that he could work himself the rest of the way out. The ice wouldn’t last but he didn’t need much, just needed enough leverage to get himself out and he could move onto more solid ice quickly.

It was exhausting and the ice gave completely under him twice before he hit a patch that was just thick enough to hold part of his weight long enough so that he could roll the rest of his body up and then away from the hole.

Okay, he could die now, he concluded in relief even as his whole body violently trembled in the cold and he really doubted that he would actually die. It wasn’t that quick of a death.

After a few seconds, he tried to convince his hands to work enough to pull his phone out his pocket in the very distant hope that these burners they had were as tough as advertised and would still maybe be working enough to call or sent a text to Andy or Booker. But his hands weren’t responding to his thoughts and just fumbled over the pocket of his vest so he gave up on that really quickly.

He needed to get to warmth, or at least start heading that direction and just maybe he could make it far enough that he didn’t die from hypothermia or the much quicker possibility of his body going into shock. He forced his eyes open and looked around to figure out which direction the house was in, finding it to his left and so he started the initially very slow process of pulling himself and crawling toward the house. It wasn’t too far away in reality but it felt like miles to his freezing, exhausted body and he tried to not get too caught up in frustration whenever his limbs didn’t do precisely what he wanted.

After some time, when he was almost to the frozen shore, he thought he heard someone call out to him and his initial thought was that it was just his luck for someone to come out and finish the job before his mind caught up to the fact that he’d heard his name. And when he heard it again, he couldn’t help but sag against the ice in his relief. He couldn’t really tell who was calling him, his mind just not making the connection between the voice and who it belonged to. Then he made the decision that if it was Andy, he didn’t want her to need to come out on the water to get him. He was close enough to the ground to spare her that so he again started pulling himself along.

He only made it about another meter when he was aware of someone running up to him. “Joe, what the hell!”

Booker.

His brother was pulling at his vest and shirt, trying to get him upright enough that he could get an arm under him and help him. Joe wanted to ask him why he was here and where Andy was and if they’d seen Nicky or the people they’d been here to free but his voice just wasn’t working. Pretty much every inch of him was shivering so violently that he was feeling exhausted from it.

“Alright, listen Joe, I’m gonna need at least a little help from you,” Booker said and Joe tried to respond but he just couldn’t get his lips and tongue to form words. He wanted to tell Booker that he was trying but everything just wasn’t working right anymore. He thought he made some sound but he couldn’t be sure.

Eventually, Booker managed to get him upright enough to get a good grip around his waist to pull him the rest of the way to his feet. He then practically dragged Joe along with him, muttering low and Joe only paid enough attention to knew it was French but didn’t bother listening to what was said. If it were important, Booker would have said it clearer.

They slowly made their way past the house and then started down the long driveway until they reached a point where trees covered the view of the road and both the car that Joe and Nicky had come in and the one Andy had been driving were parked next to each other. Booker reached into his pocket and pulled out a key and unlocked the door, then opened the back door of his and Andy’s car before letting Joe fall into the seat, then reached over the seat so he could turn the engine on and turned up the heat all the way. He returned his attention to Joe.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, brother, but we need to strip you down,” Booker declared even as he was reaching for Joe’s shoes to get him started. “We’ve got a change of clothes for you in the trunk. Think you can help me out?”

Joe wanted to nod and he might have actually managed to do so but he was really starting to lose track of what movements were actually translating to action now. Without a destination to focus on, he was struggling to care about remaining awake.

Booker was suddenly close to his face, his hands on either side of Joe’s face and he was holding him tightly enough that Joe could feel the touch even through the numbness and he forced his eyes open to meet Booker’s blue eyes. “Yusuf, you made it this far without going under. Just stay with me a little longer. Nicky will kill me if I let you die on my watch and I know he’s already in a bad mood because you've been all cranky so whatever he did to me will be particularly sadistic. Now, you hate the cold so much so let’s get you out of these freezing clothes so you can start warming up.”

Joe took in a few deep, shuddering breaths before he felt like he was in better control, more focused with the reminder of how much his Nicolo hated it when he died needlessly and he finally managed to speak through his shivering, asking Booker, “You going to cuddle me?”

Booker let out a short laugh as he bumped his forehead against Joe’s affectionately, something he'd picked up from Andy over the past few years though he did it very sparingly. He then gave Joe’s cheek a quick pat and let him go to start working his weapons and gear vest off, Joe managing to coordinate his movements enough to lean back and forth so his stuff could be pulled off him. The car was starting to warm up and Joe was feeling his body starting to absorb the warmth. Booker pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor of the car before he stepped out of the car, opening the driver side door to pop the trunk and then he disappeared around the back of the car.

Joe was rubbing his hands up and down his freezing arms when the door behind him opened and he startled away from it clumsily. He was about to turn when familiar arms wrapped around him and he relaxed back into his love’s embrace, Nicky moving in to sit behind him.

“You don’t even like swimming in pools. Why did you think it would be a good idea to swim in a frozen lake?” Nicky asked into Joe’s ear before he pressed firm kisses along the side of Joe’s head even though Joe could only sort of feel them.

“I took some bad advice,” he said, his voice still shuddering with the violent shivers of his body. “Andy?”

“Making sure everyone is alright. We’ve already made the call to the police. I called Booker as soon as I returned.” Which meant that he had been killed by the guards from the other rooms.

Booker came back around the other open door and leaned into the car once more. He handed a shirt to Nicky, who took it and set it off to the side for now, using his embrace to help Joe warm up. “Wanna help move him around so I can get these pants off him?” Booker asked Nicky and Joe felt Nicky nod against the back of his head.

It took some maneuvering and Joe tried to help as much as possible but it was mostly Nicky doing the work while Booker helped pull his soaked pants off and then helped to slide a dry pair of pants on. Nicky then pulled the dry shirt onto Joe before returning to his warming embrace and Joe rested back against him, feeling the full force of his exhaustion. Booker stayed in the backseat, sitting close to Joe so that he was also helping to warm him back up.

As they waited for Andy to come back so they could leave, Joe eventually reminded them, “I hate the cold.”

Booker replied with a simple, “We know. Now shut up and get some rest. And you know I’m just saying that because Andy isn’t here right now to say it herself.”

“She’ll tell me once she gets here,” Joe murmured as he clumsily reached for Nicky’s hand and his love intertwined their fingers, squeezing tightly until Joe managed to coordinate enough to squeeze back even as his awareness faded into unconsciousness or sleep, he wasn’t sure which one he ended up in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed, especially since this is one of the few fics I've written so far that has some focus on Booker and Joe interacting. I want to do more with that but it's been one of the tougher dynamics for me to get a handle on.
> 
> I feel like I should mention that I am born and raised Alaskan. So I didn't really need to do research into how cold affects the body because it's been hammered into my head as part of basic health class since elementary school, you know, it being a legit concern. Not to mention my dad being a double amputee because of frostbite so I also grew up seeing the consequences of not treating the cold with respect. Also, some people just don't handle cold well, no matter how long they've been around. I know plenty of people born and raised here that can't take it when it gets to middle of winter. But just as much people can't handle the other end of the temperature spectrum so it all balances out ^_^. Roundabout way of saying I had no problem coming up for plenty with this prompt.


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